


subcon forest is full of happy and well-adjusted people

by MiniNephthys



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, and by the third time you do this you go 'peck it I'll post the fic myself', sometimes you forget your friend's oc isn't a canon character and search for them on ao3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-06-03 17:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19469041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: Sometimes, your girlfriend locks you in the dungeon and you turn into a soul-stealing abomination.  Sometimes your mutual friend attempts to reason with her, gets a hole in his chest for his troubles, and turns into a similar kind of spirit.You don't talk about this for a thousand years because who talks about feelings?  Not you.





	1. the shortened distance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rukafais](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/gifts), [ShadetoShade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadetoShade/gifts).



> I told ruka I would post my Ekkehardt/Snatcher fic collection because I keep forgetting that there's not going to be fic on AO3 because Ekke is their OC, so here it is
> 
> the prince's name is Avery
> 
> no I'm not giving context for any of these

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avery and Ekkehardt after a rescue.

Avery’s home doesn’t have a fireplace. A few torches will have to do, fetched by minions who are too relieved about having their boss back to ask questions.

They’re nothing compared to that terrible cold, Ekkehardt knows. But then, he’s always trying to help uselessly-

(Except this time he wasn’t useless, he rescued Avery from that fate worse than death, worse than the fates already handed to them - and Ekkehardt is too tired to unpack all of that right now.)

He lies curled up in dog form on the floor, with Avery in his comfortable chair. Neither of them have acknowledged Ekkehardt’s head leaning into Avery’s hand. If they acknowledged it, one of them might have to pull away, to maintain that distance they keep.

He’s not ready for Avery to be distant yet. Not again.

“Your lackeys missed you,” he says, quiet. (I missed you.) “The one you rescued especially.” (You didn’t deserve this for doing something kind for once.) “Cried on me.”

“I don’t remember giving them tear ducts,” Avery says. He sounds lost in his own head. Ekkehardt can hardly blame him.

“That one has plenty.”

Silence, interrupted only by the crackling of the torches.

“Ekke.” Avery is staring at a spot on the opposite wall. “…thanks.”

From anyone else, it would seem pitifully underwhelming. Considering the fate Ekkehardt saved him from, most people would shower him with gratitude, ‘I owe you my life’ and promises to make it up to him somehow.

From Avery? Ekkehardt treasures that one word more than all the gold and jewels and time pieces in the world.

“…As if I could do anything else.”

As much as he makes a point of reminding Avery that defending him and ending up in this situation was his own decision and Avery should feel no guilt over it - there really was no chance of him making any other decision with Avery in danger. Not then, not now, not ever.

After another moment of comfortable silence, Avery says, “Well, that was fun, let’s never speak of this incident again!” He sounds more like his usual self, though he hasn’t quite recaptured all of his bombast yet.

Ekkehardt would smile, but his jaw isn’t exactly built for it right now. “What incident?”

“Exactly! Just a regular day puttering around the ol’ forest.”

But he still has his hand brushing Ekkehardt’s head, and Ekkehardt isn’t moving first.


	2. an arteest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Subcon doesn't look the way it used to, but Avery could still decorate.

Subcon is not exactly the most scenic of forests, not anymore. Perhaps there is a certain beauty in its darkness, but Ekkehardt liked it better when the sun shone on at least a semiregular basis.

Still, thinking ‘what if’ has never helped anyone, least of all him. This is Avery’s forest, which means that it’s his forest, and he will either appreciate it the way that it is or find some way to make improvements.

Avery finds him staring intently at one of his home’s bare walls and says, “If you’re trying to kill termites with willpower alone, the last guy who fell into my trap was an exterminator, that’s all taken care of.”

Ekkehardt shakes his head: he remembers that guy perfectly well. Sending him to get eaten by a giant bug was perhaps a little cruel, but then again, Avery. Instead: “You could decorate.”

“…Decorate.” Avery sounds like he’s never heard the word before.

“You do have some wall space. Enough to hang up a picture or two.”

Suddenly, Avery lights up. “You’re right! And I did just see a painting that was to die for-”

“One that doesn’t have a soul in it,” Ekkehardt clarifies.

Literally deflating, Avery rolls his eyes. “Fine, fine. What’s gotten you into this art phase anyway?”

Funny how actually saying ‘I want your house to look less depressingly sparse’ is much harder than thinking it. “Some of us have hobbies,” Ekkehardt says, even though he’s pretty sure Avery knows better than he does that he’s never touched a paintbrush in his life.

“Oh? Since you’re an artist, why don’t you just make me some decorations yourself?”

Avery’s expression says he’s well aware that Ekkehardt isn’t an artist and couldn’t convincingly pose as one with any excuse besides ‘modern art’. He would be a little more concerned about this challenge he’s walked into, except:

“You want to hang my art in your home? I’m touched,” he says with a smirk. “You really do care.”

Nailed it. Avery’s protest comes instantly. “I only care about not spending money! Haven’t you heard of being a savvy customer?”

“You don’t spend any money anyway, you just steal things that you like.”

“Then I’m a savvy thief!” Avery huffs and folds his arms. “Get your own damn house if you want to play interior designer so much.”

And Ekkehardt was never proved not to be an artist.


	3. from a minion's-eye view

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Gehring is very smart and cool.

Mr. Gehring is very smart and cool. Sometimes the boss wants something done and the Subconites don’t really know how to do it, but Mr. Gehring will give them advice if they ask and help when it’s tough. They don’t want to bother him too much, because Mr. Gehring is very important with lots of important things to do, like making their boss feel better.

Once a very, very little Subconite asked if they could ride on Mr. Gehring’s back for a little bit, and he said yes, and everyone else was super jealous. But they didn’t say anything, because then Mr. Gehring might notice the ones that were taking pictures to give to the boss later.

Sometimes Mr. Gehring and the boss have a fight. They can always tell because the boss is in a terrible mood and Mr. Gehring goes to hide by himself for a while. But they always make up, so the Subconites try not to worry too much.

Once a very, very, very little Subconite asked the boss if he liked Mr. Gehring. He said he wouldn’t let him stay around in his forest if he disliked him, which was sort of like saying yes.


	4. you have been served

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Snatcher files for divorce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise, bet you thought you'd seen the last of me and my ship

“-but actually, you’re in luck! I need somebody to do one simple task for me. It’s not even that hard! All you have to do is deliver these papers to the manor in the woods. I’d do it myself, but it’s unprofessional to serve your own divorce papers. Why don’t you sign this contract and agree to help me out? Or I can just kill you. Killing you and eating your soul is still very much on the table.

“Good choice. Let me grab this for safekeeping while you’re gone… hahahaha!”

* * *

“I’m surprised that bird made it out alive,” Ekkehardt says, from his spot curled on the Snatcher’s comfortable chair. “I’m even more surprised you let him leave the forest.”

“Killing him would be a mercy after that.” The Snatcher can’t know exactly how Vanessa reacted to being informed that he legally filed for divorce, but he can’t imagine she took it well. “And I’m a lot of things, but I’m not merciful.”

“I see,” Ekkehardt says, in that tone that says ‘I don’t believe you, I think you’re doing a good thing for someone and this is an excuse’. The Snatcher would argue this more, but…

It hasn’t been so long since he was trapped in a block of ice. The Snatcher supposes that rescuing him from that gets Ekkehardt one free pass. (That he thought those words about letting Ekkehardt nap in his chair, he deliberately ignores. It’s still just one free pass.)

“So! Next on the list is a restraining order! She can’t get within… let’s say three hundred feet of me, any of my minions, or you. I’d say the whole Subcon but technically, her mansion is in the Subcon and she’d be even worse if she ever left it.” The Snatcher, at least, takes great relief in the fact that if he never goes back there to pick up one of his caught minions, he will probably never have to see her again.

“Do you have any way of enforcing that?” Ekke asks.

“It’s just the procedure in these cases,” the Snatcher says, which means ‘no’. “I’ll file for custody of the Subcon and its inhabitants too, let’s just knock all these papers out in one go while I’m on a roll.”

“All of them?”

Oh, Ekkehardt is an inhabitant too. Having legal guardianship of him feels weird, probably just because they’re the same age. It has nothing to do with being childhood friends, and it definitely has nothing to do with how Ekkehardt raging at Vanessa for his sake was maybe, kind of, sort of hot. Because it wasn’t. That sounds like a feeling the Snatcher does not have and would not want to examine if he did.

“…Joint custody.”

As soon as he says it, he knows the minions are going to have a field day with that in their continuing ‘The Boss and Mr. Gehring Like Each Other’ theory. Maybe the one he rescued will be too distracted to keep feeling guilty.

It’s bad when doing something good for someone _is_ the excuse.


	5. dozing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avery definitely doesn't need any sleep.

Sleep is somewhat more variable as a spirit.

Ekkehardt will sometimes sleep for a few months at a time. Avery doesn’t know where he goes during these naps and doesn’t ask (although one time he thought he saw Ekkehardt’s form among the trees, but it must have been a trick of the light, because Ekkehardt never wore Avery’s childhood mask-)

Avery doesn’t sleep if he can help it. He rarely dreams of anything but her. Even now, she still tries to lay her claim on him.

He clearly doesn’t need to sleep anyway. He’s just yawning in this conversation with Ekkehardt because Ekkehardt is a tiresome person, not because going without sleep for a few weeks is bad for him or anything like that. He can slump onto Ekkehardt’s shoulder if he wants to. Everything in this forest belongs to him, including Ekke’s shoulder.

…When he next opens his eyes, he’s still leaning on Ekkehardt’s shoulder.

“And another thing,” he says, because he definitely just closed his eyes for a few seconds and not a few hours. He can’t quite remember what they were just arguing about to continue that sentence, but it was probably stupid anyway.

Ekkehardt smiles, infuriatingly smug and gentle at the same time in that way only he can pull off. “Did you sleep well?”

“Awful.” Avery straightens up, feeling better than he has in weeks.


	6. so how about that direct

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ekkehardt and Avery vacation in Galar.

Avery and Ekkehardt rarely manage to leave Subcon for any length of time, so when they do commit to going on vacation, it had better be relaxing.

And Galar is relaxing, at least at first. Ekkehardt spends a good half hour just watching some Wooloo roll around and reminiscing about the Alpine Skyline - it’s always a good sign when Ekke can remember something, and remember it fondly at that.

The less relaxing bit…

Avery dumps a handful of Pokeballs in front of Ekkehardt.

Ekkehardt looks between the collection and the Snatcher. “I asked you to get us raincoats.”

“Got ‘em. From the guys who threw all these balls at me.” Avery rolls his eyes as he drops way more raincoats than the two of them need onto the pile. “The hell’s a ‘Dynamax Polteageist’?”

“…Well, if they just threw Pokeballs at you with no preamble, then they probably weren’t very good Trainers anyway.”

And as everyone knows, beating up weak trainers for their pocket change is perfectly fine. Stealing their coats can’t be any worse.


	7. dionysus in technicolor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ekkehardt and Avery have a fling with a sketchy drink.

“Guess what I’ve got?”

Ekkehardt doesn’t even look up at Avery. “A bad idea?”

“Something that I don’t always have.” Avery deposits a bottle directly in front of him. “Got this off a crow that was doing ‘investigations’ in my forest.”

The label reads ‘Concentrated Alcoholic Wash’ and nothing else. Squinting at it, Ekkehardt guesses, “Hard liquor?”

“Either this's a drink too strong to be commercially available, guaranteed to get even the most resilient of spirits drunk,” Avery says, “or that crow was full of shit. Want to find out which?”

“If I say no, you’ll just drink it yourself.” The grin and lack of denial from Avery makes Ekkehardt sigh. “Do we have shot glasses?”

They don’t, just wine glasses, and Ekkehardt’s not willing to put a whole wine glass’ worth of a supposedly ultra-powerful alcohol in his system. He settles for about a quarter of it, down the hatch to get it over with.

He feels perfectly normal. What was that crow even talking about?

“So how do you feel?” Avery asks, with a pen and clipboard in hand. Ekkehardt’s not sure where he got those from, but Avery getting things out of nowhere is also normal. “Be completely honest. For science.”

“Fine,” he says. When did they change the lights? This bright pink glow is… oh, that’s coming from him.

“Iiinteresting.” Avery scribbles something down. It isn’t science unless you write it down.

“…Actually, I am a bit warm…” The correct response to this is, of course, to lean against Avery’s side to cool himself off with Avery’s lack of body heat. Avery allows it. “I’m not much of a sample size on my own. Symptoms might vary.”

“You make an excellent point.” And Avery pours himself half a glass. “Cheers!”

They’re both glowing interesting colors now. Avery keeps shifting between neon green and gold, while Ekkehardt’s settled somewhere in the blue spectrum.

Everything Avery says is terribly funny. Not that it isn’t usually, but Ekkehardt doesn’t let himself laugh for some reason that doesn’t seem important right now. They’re both laughing, bumping shoulders every time they do.

Personal space is also something that doesn’t seem important right now. Ekkehardt is watching Avery, and when Avery turns, his face is just - right there. Right there, separated by the space of a breath.

And then they aren’t separated any longer.

The span of two heartbeats, if they still had them, and Ekkehardt jerks back. The soft glow is gone: he feels more painfully sober than he’s ever been.

If he looks at Avery for even a moment longer, he’ll have to register the expression on Avery’s face. So he whirls on his heel.

He means to say something like ‘I think we’ve both had more than enough’ or ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me’.

What he actually says is, “Bye.” And then he flees.


End file.
